Magical Super Playtime
by Literary Eagle
Summary: Terazuma and Wakaba become the hosts of a children's show! With the other Shinigami and even Muraki helping out, will television ever be the same?


As always, feedback would be very much appreciated! Oh, and if you want to post this story on your site, please ask me first.

Summary: Terazuma and Wakaba become the hosts of a children's show! With the other Shinigami and even Muraki helping out, will television ever be the same? (WARNING! This story contains some yaoi humor. It's not a lemon, but if you still can't handle that, please read another fic instead.)

Legal disclaimer: Yami no Matsuei is the property of Matsushita-sensei and whoever else owns it, not me. I also don't own any of the children's shows or songs alluded to in this fic. However, this story is mine. It is a work of parody/homage, and no profit is being made from it, so please don't sue.

Magical Super Playtime  
By Literary Eagle

"I can't believe I'm doing this," said Terazuma, looking at his surroundings with disdain. The soundstage had been set up to look like a ridiculously cute kindergarten classroom. There were crayon drawings of cakes on the walls, and toy puppies scattered all over the floor. Everything was so mind-numbingly adorable that he felt like punching someone ... preferably Tsuzuki.

"Sorry, Hajime-chan, but that's what you get for fighting with Tsuzuki-san all the time!" Wakaba chided gently, "We desperately need money to pay for all the property damage you two have caused! Besides, getting a second job as a children's show host isn't THAT bad."

Terazuma merely rolled his eyes in reply, although secretly he agreed that it could have been a lot worse. At least he didn't have to wear a dumb costume. Last he heard, they were making Tsuzuki dress up as some kind of animal. In fact, just thinking about that made him feel much better. Oh, he was definitely going to enjoy seeing that lazy idiot get humiliated...

As if summoned by Terazuma's thoughts, Tsuzuki suddenly bounded onto the stage, with a pair of gaudy yellow antennae atop his head. Over his usual black suit, he was wearing flimsy cardboard wings and a huge inflatable bee's butt with a stinger. Both the antennae and the striped bee derriere bobbed up and down as he walked, making him look like a hyper windup toy.

Terazuma laughed triumphantly. The costume looked even stupider than he had hoped! Wait a minute... Why was Tsuzuki smiling?

Noooooooo! The little freak was enjoying it!

"What the hell are you so happy about?" Terazuma demanded.

As impossible as it seemed, Tsuzuki's smile got even wider. "There used to be a children's show with a character called a 'Do Bee'," he said, his eyes sparkling with wonder, "I feel like such a star! I'm a Tsuzu-Bee now!"

"A Tsuzu-Bee?! Have you completely lost your mind?" said Terazuma, enraged at the missed opportunity to see a suffering Tsuzuki.

"Please don't be mad, Hajime-chan", said Wakaba, using her sweetest voice, "Working on an educational children's show is a wonderful job, because you're doing something good for the community! Besides, women love a man who's good with kids!"

Terazuma snorted. "I don't care about that crap," he said, turning away so she wouldn't see that he was blushing slightly, "Let's just film this damn show and get it over with."

Wakaba clapped her hands with delight. "Ready when you are, director-san!"

"Quiet on the set, everyone!" Tatsumi called out from his position in the director's chair, "We're about to get started... Wait, where's Kurosaki-kun?"

"Hisoka was feeling a bit embarrassed about his costume, so he's still in his dressing room," Tsuzuki replied distractedly, gazing in awe at all the stuffed toy puppies on the stage. He seemed particularly entranced by one that was as big as Byakko.

"Oh. Well, we don't need him for the opening scene, so it should be alright to start without him," said Tatsumi, "We don't need you for this scene either, Tsuzuki-san, so please stay out of trouble until you're called. Do you understand?"

The only answer was snores, and everyone sweatdropped upon seeing that Tsuzuki was curled up at the feet of the Byakko-sized toy puppy, fast asleep.

"Hmm... I suppose that counts as staying out of trouble," said Tatsumi, ignoring Terazuma's scowl. "Watari-san, are you ready with the camera?"

Watari pointed to a bizarre owl-shaped video camera that was perched on his shoulder. "Smile fer da BirdieCam!" he said in his distinctly accented voice.

"3... 2... 1... Action!" said Tatsumi.

"Hi everyone!" said Wakaba, waving at the BirdieCam, "I'm Wakaba, and this is The Magical Super Playtime Show! We're going to learn a lot of cool things and have lots of fun. First, our good friend Hajime-chan is going to teach us the days of the week!"

"Let's start with today," said Terazuma, feeling foolish talking to Watari's garish invention, "Today is mokuyoobi, known in English as 'Thursday'. It is written with these three kanji." Picking up a piece of chalk, he scrawled the three symbols for mokuyoobi onto the blackboard. "The first kanji means 'wood', so you can think of mokuyoobi as 'Wood Day', and..."

He was interrupted when Tsuzuki suddenly leapt into the air with an unbelievably shrill scream.

"What the hell is wrong with you now?" said Terazuma, "Can't you even sleep properly, you moron?"

"It's not my fault!" Tsuzuki snapped, "The toy tried to fondle me!"

Before Terazuma could accuse Tsuzuki of being high on Smurfberries, the gigantic toy puppy began to move. There was a loud unzipping sound, and the sides of the toy fell away to reveal...

"Muraki!" Tsuzuki cried, "What are you doing here? Go away!"

"But Tsuzu-Bee, I just want to help demonstrate 'Wood Day'," Muraki purred, trying to fondle Tsuzuki again. The costumed Shinigami responded by wailing and shaking with fear. Terazuma, on the other hand, shook with laughter as he watched this encounter between Beauty and the Bee.

"Please calm down, Tsuzuki-san," said Tatsumi, adjusting his glasses in his usual businesslike manner, "I invited Muraki-sensei. He is the one funding this production, so I thought it was only fair that he should be allowed to watch us film."

Tsuzuki wailed again. "Tatsumi, how can you betray me like this? And Watari, stop filming my misery!"

"Hey, just doin' my job!" said Watari, patting the BirdieCam as it zoomed in on Tsuzuki's face, "C'mon, smile! Da camera loves ya!"

"Indeed, you are so lovable," said Muraki, playfully tugging the antennae on Tsuzuki's head, "Now, now, there's no need to be so upset. I have some wonderful ideas for this show! How would you like to take part in a sing-along?"

Tsuzuki's eyes lit up and he seemingly forgot his predicament. "Wow, you mean when a bouncing ball points to song lyrics on the screen, and everyone sings along? I've always wanted to do one of those!"

"Hey, what about my lesson on the days of the week?" said Terazuma, fuming as Tsuzuki stuck his tongue out at him.

With a victorious smile, Muraki whispered a spell, and song lyrics magically appeared in the air. Then to everyone's horror, he pulled his mechanical eye right out of his head and happily exclaimed, "Follow the bouncing eyeball, children!"

Muraki's eye bounced along the floating lyrics, and the insane doctor began to sing (to the tune of "On Top of Spaghetti"),

On top of Tsuzuki  
That's where I shall be  
When he's squirming beneath me  
I'll feel such glee...

"Waaaaah! Stop!" Tsuzuki shouted, covering his ears.

"Personally, I rather like this song," said Terazuma, smirking at Tsuzuki's discomfort, "I have to admit, this is way better than teaching the days of the week!"

The shadows in the room suddenly sprang to life, shredding the lyrics into confetti and shoving the "bouncing ball" back into Muraki's eye socket. "I'm sorry, Muraki-sensei, but we're running short on time," Tatsumi said smoothly, "But don't worry, because I need you to play a very important role in the upcoming segment. In fact, it's the main reason why I invited you here. Please change into your costume and learn your lines as quickly as possible." The shadows shifted again, this time depositing a small bundle of clothes and a script into Muraki's hands.

Taking this all in stride, Muraki blew a kiss at Tsuzuki, then left to use one of the changing rooms.

Terazuma waved at the departing doctor. "Please hurry back!" he said joyously, as visions of tortured Tsuzu-Bees danced in his head.

"This is awful!" said Tsuzuki, wringing his hands, "Tatsumi, why are you letting that pervert be on the show?"

"You'll understand soon enough," Tatsumi said mysteriously, "Now, please fetch Kurosaki-kun. Your scene with him is coming up."

Apparently having given up on trying to understand Tatsumi's plans, Tsuzuki knocked on the door to Hisoka's dressing room. "Hisoka, it's time for your scene now!"

"I'm not coming out in this stupid costume!" Hisoka's voice shouted from behind the door.

"But you look so cute," Tsuzuki insisted, throwing open the door and dragging Hisoka onto the stage.

Terazuma and the others tried to stifle their laughter as they saw that Hisoka was wearing a long green sack. It covered his entire body except for his head, causing him to resemble a big snuggly beanbag.

"Stop staring at me!" said Hisoka, blushing in a way that only served to increase the cuteness factor, "This costume is horrible! There aren't even any holes for my arms and legs!"

"That's because you're supposed to be a bookworm, and everyone knows that worms don't have arms and legs," Tsuzuki explained cheerfully, "A good children's show needs a character who encourages people to read, and an adorable Hisoka Bookworm is perfect for that role!"

"Besides, dat green costume matches yer eyes," said Watari, dutifully filming everything.

It was fortunate that Hisoka was unable to use his arms, because it looked as if he wanted to make Watari eat the camera.

"Please get into your places, everyone," said Tatsumi, "It's time to introduce the safety segment."

"I hope you kids are having fun so far!" said Wakaba, smiling at the BirdieCam, "But it's very important to play safe. So now our good friend Hajime-chan is going to tell a story about the danger of talking to strangers."

The camera turned to Terazuma, who cleared his throat and began, "Once upon a time, Tsuzuki..."

"It's Tsuzu-Bee!" Tsuzuki corrected, wagging his yellow striped bee rump for emphasis.

"Fine, whatever," Terazuma said impatiently, "Once upon a time, Tsuzu-Bee and his best friend Hisoka Bookworm were going for a walk."

Taking his cue, Tsuzuki walked in front of the camera, while the currently limbless Hisoka had to follow by wiggling across the stage on his belly.

"Suddenly," Terazuma continued, "they found themselves face-to-face with ... a stranger!"

That must have been Muraki's cue, because he suddenly leapt onto the stage wearing a black costume with multiple arms. "Hello," he said warmly, "I'm Muraki the Hentai Spider."

"Oh, um ... hello," Tsuzuki said uncertainly, "My, you sure have a lot of arms..."

"The better to grope you with, my dear!" said Muraki, wrapping his many arms around Tsuzuki.

"What the hell are you doing?" said Tsuzuki, frantically trying to get away, "Help!"

Hisoka was still unable to use his limbs, so he did the next best thing by biting Muraki's ankle and hanging on like an oversized leech. The BirdieCam was then treated to the outlandish sight of Muraki letting go of Tsuzuki and flailing about madly, trying to shake off Hisoka with shouts of "Down, boy! Down! Bad bookworm! Let go!"

Wakaba looked understandably flustered. "Oh dear, this is turning quite violent and disturbing," she said worriedly, "Tatsumi-san, are you sure that this is the best way to teach children about safety?"

"Oh, this isn't meant to be a safety lesson for the children," said Tatsumi with a scary glint in his eye, "It's supposed to be a safety lesson for Muraki."

Before anyone could ask what that meant, all the shadows in the room coalesced into a giant flyswatter and proceeded to turn Muraki the Hentai Spider into Muraki the Pancake.

"Now listen well, Muraki-sensei," said Tatsumi in an eerily polite tone, "If I ever see you harassing any of my coworkers again, it will be very bad for your personal safety. Understood?"

The Muraki Pancake must have twitched in a way that Tatsumi interpreted as an affirmative, because the shadows slithered back into their normal places.

"Oh Tatsumi, I shouldn't have doubted you!" said Tsuzuki, giving the shadow manipulator a hug, "My hero!"

"Hey, he's not the one who had to taste Muraki's sock," said Hisoka, trying without success to stand up.

Tsuzuki gave Hisoka a hug as well. "Oh, but Hisoka, you're my hero everyday!" He received a lot of blushing and sputtering in response.

Turning away from the silly scene, Terazuma looked up in time to see that Muraki had somehow managed to un-pancake himself, and was now sneaking up behind Wakaba with a large knife. "Kannuki, look out!" he shouted, immediately changing into his Shikigami form and firing an energy blast in Muraki's direction.

"Wakaba-chan, look out!" Tsuzuki shouted at the same time, summoning Suzaku and ordering her to attack Muraki.

The combined might of the two Shikigami made a dazzling pyrotechnics display that caused everyone to applaud. Well, except for Hisoka... He still couldn't use his hands, so he had to settle for banging his head against the wall. Then again, maybe he was trying to knock himself unconscious so he could forget this whole crazy experience.

However, just as the flames would have consumed Muraki, shadows sprang to life and smothered the fire.

"Hey! Tatsumi, why did you protect him?" said Tsuzuki, his incredulous expression mirrored by Terazuma (who had changed back into human form).

"Thank you for your help, Muraki-sensei," Tatsumi said calmly, "But I must warn you: even though this was all an act, I meant what I said during the 'safety lesson'."

"This was a fun day," said Muraki, bending his knife to show that the blade was actually made of rubber, "Thank you for this opportunity, Tatsumi-san."

Terazuma and Tsuzuki's jaws dropped. What the heck was going on?

"Oh, and Tsuzuki-san, I hope you'll wear that bee costume for me again sometime," said Muraki, leering.

Shadows rippled across the stage. "Please leave NOW, Muraki-sensei, before I change my mind," Tatsumi cautioned.

Muraki bowed, then disappeared in a shower of white feathers.

"So ... this was all an act?" asked Terazuma, "But why?"

"Because we decided that the best way to avoid future repair costs was to stop you and Tsuzuki-san from fighting," said Tatsumi.

"Yeah, so we asked Muraki-sensei to come here and cause trouble until the two of you finally cooperated to stop him," said Wakaba, "See what happens when you guys work together? Such power! It was really pretty!"

Tsuzuki glanced at Hisoka. "Were you in on this too?"

Hisoka nodded and mumbled something.

"What was that?" Tsuzuki asked, "I couldn't hear you."

"I said, you guys are like family to me," said Hisoka, his blush rivaling a cooked lobster's complexion, "and I think it would be nice if you got along a bit better."

Tsuzuki and Wakaba's eyes grew large and sparkly. "That's so sweet!" they chorused, causing Terazuma to gag from the sappiness of it all.

"Hajime-chan, we're not expecting an overnight miracle," Wakaba said gently, "but can't you and Tsuzuki-san try to fight less? Please?"

There was no way in hell that Terazuma would admit it out loud, but he couldn't refuse a request when she talked to him like that. "Alright," he said, trying for the sake of his reputation to sound at least a little reluctant, "I'll do my best. Tsuzuki, I'm sorry for flushing your puppy keychain down the toilet."

"And I'm sorry for the time I ate all your chocolates," said Tsuzuki.

Hisoka glared at him.

"Oh, and your cookies, brownies, donuts, marshmallows..." Tsuzuki added, looking sheepish.

"Okay, dat's a wrap!" said Watari, turning off the BirdieCam, "A happy ending!"

"Do you think we'll be hired to make a full season of this show?" Tatsumi asked.

Terazuma shook his head. "To be honest, I highly doubt that this pilot episode will make it past the censors," he said.

"Oh well," Wakaba said with a smile, "That's okay, because at least there's plenty of quality children's programming already out there. Like that show with the Do Bee and the magic mirror... Nobody could possibly get bad ideas from such an innocent show, right?"

*****

Meanwhile, in the Castle of Candles, Hakushaku-sama was filming a children's program of his own. "Let me show you kids how I do my job," he said, looking into a magic mirror to view the world of the living, "Oh, I see Billy and Bobby and Suzie..."

He then walked over to the candles that held the flames of people's lives, and began to blow out a few of them. "Now I'm KILLING Billy and Bobby and Suzie," he said, "Wasn't that fun?"

The End (thank goodness)

Author's notes: This all started when a conversation with my friend AleeN inspired me to draw a picture of chibi Tsuzuki as a bee and chibi Hisoka as a bookworm.

A month later, I was talking to K'thardin about spoofing children's shows like Romper Room, and I decided to make the idea into a fic to accompany my drawing. Many thanks go to AleeN, K'thardin, and Firebird for prereading this crazy story!

Anyway, thanks for reading! If you have any feedback on this fic (or any of my other works), feel free to drop me a line.

Text copyright 2003, Literary Eagle  
(But the characters belong to other people.)


End file.
